1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method of providing a service through a mobile terminal, and in particular, to a method of providing a Karaoke service to a mobile terminal, and providing a computer-readable recording medium to record a program thereon for performing the Karaoke service method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to its portability and convenience, the mobile terminal has emerged as a necessity in daily living. Commonly, mobile terminals are equipped with a variety of functions including phonebook and scheduler. Accordingly, they serve as a personal information manager in addition to a means for making phone calls. 2.5th generation mobile terminals, based on IS (International Standard)-95C, and 3rd generation mobile terminals such as IMT (International Mobile Communication)-2000 terminals provide additional multimedia service for personal entertainment purposes.
A Karaoke function, a type of personal entertainment service, plays songs across various genres with lyrics and animation through a mobile terminal. FIG. 1 illustrates a mobile communication system for providing a conventional Karaoke service. Referring to FIG. 1, the Karaoke service is provided over a typical mobile communication network. Hence, the Karaoke service is provided directly from a service provider (SP) over the mobile communication network rather than a service from the mobile communication network itself.
The mobile communication system is comprised of a mobile terminal 11 for receiving the Karaoke service over the mobile communication network, a home location register (HLR) 12 and an authentication center (AC) 13 for providing the registration information of the mobile terminal 11, a mobile communication network 14 for connecting SPs to users, and a Karaoke SP 15 for providing the Karaoke service.
In operation, the user of the mobile terminal 11 selects an intended song and requests its audio data from the Karaoke SP 15 through the mobile communication network 14. The Karaoke SP 15 then authenticates the user through the HLR 12 and the AC 13 and provides the audio data stored in its database to the user. The mobile terminal 11 plays the song with its lyric displayed using the received audio data, enabling the user to sing along.
In general, a user enjoys Karaoke music with others rather than alone. The volume of music that a single mobile terminal plays depends on its speaker and is usually not loud enough for a plurality of users to enjoy the music. In addition, no matter how good the speaker is, it cannot offer enough volume for them with the single sound source.
In view of diverse voice services and rapid changes in their formats, the Karaoke SP 15 attempts to attract mobile subscribers with new features such as accompaniment with multichannel surround sound effects including stereo, or accompaniment with higher-note polyphonic sound through the existing mobile terminal limited to a 40-note polyphonic sound capacity. However, with the service deployment depending on the performance of an individual mobile terminal in the conventional technology, the benefits of those services are often elusive.